Digest mode (was: Re: MIDRANGE-L Digest V3 #978)

John Earl wrote:

>I've been curious about digest mode for a while now.   
>Does it have benefits over just filtering incoming 
>messages to a folder?   

Hi John!  Yes; the major benefit is to the disk space on my PC!  :-)  Each
message averages 5kb in size, including headers and the list sig at the
bottom.  When in digest mode, I get between 15 and 20 messages per email at
about 50kb per digest.  The secondary benefit is that I get to see if
somebody responded to "How can I see the folders in the IFS from a green
screen?" before adding my reply to the pile.  Finally, I am old-school: I
learnt email from Fidonet.  I'm very much accustomed to fetching a day's
worth of email, creating my replies and sending off those replies - all in a
batch.  The current email client I'm forced to use at work doesn't emulate
that very well, but digest mode helps.

>I prefer to drop everything from midrange-L@midrange.com 
>into my midrange-l folder and then sort through it at my
>leisure.  This gives me the added benefit of being able 
>to quickly eliminate subjects and authors that I don't care to read.

The twit filter is indeed a benefit to the "message at a time" scheme, and
one I miss in digest mode.  I found that when I got 150+ messages a day in
my "midrange" folder I tended to skip a lot of them. Something about the
sheer number.  I realise I'm getting the same amount of messages in digest
mode, but psychologically 5 digests a day seems easier to peruse than 150
messages...  :-)

>I only mention it because when I first decided that the midrange-l 
>volume was too burdonesome I tried digest-mode and found it to 
>be even more difficult to work with.  Filtering to a folder is a much 
>more manageable solution.

Actually, I agree that filtering is a Good Thing.  If only MS Outlook had
more sophisticated filtering.  Specifically, I'd like to write my own filter
macros.  Programmer mentality I guess.  "I just KNOW I can do a better job
than that!"  :-)  Maybe after the holidays I'll go back to individual
messages for a while and see if I can work with the filtering...  Gotta keep
an open mind!

Buck Calabro
Aptis; Albany, NY
"Nothing is so firmly believed as
 that which we least know" -- Michel Montaigne
Visit the Midrange archives at http://www.midrange.com
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